I spend a lot of time at the moment looking at how we can interpret and explain labour market data, especially for use in careers. Universities are a sensitive area of policy in the UK, and particularly in England, with an increase in fees of up to £9000 a year from this September. Inevitably, young people – and parents, are increasingly wondering if it is worth it in terms of future careers.

Strangely the big fall off in applications is from mature students who will be less effected as many of them will not hit the ceiling for repayments of the students loans being made available to pay the fees.

Thus, I suspect, it is perception rather than immediate hard economics which is driving people to apply or not.

Yesterday, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) published a new report – Graduates in the Labour Market 2012 – based on the latest statistics from the Labour Force Survey. And in a very welcome development, they published a video on Youtube to accompany the PDF report. The Guardian newspaper highlighted the main results of the4 report:

More than a third of recent graduates are employed in low-skilled jobs, official figures show.

In the final quarter of 2011, 35.9% of those who had graduated from university in the previous six years were employed in lower-skilled occupations, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. This compares with 26.7%, or just over one in four, in 2001.

In the same period, the number of recent graduates in the jobs market has grown by 438,000 to around 1.5 million in 2011.

Jobs categorised as low-skilled by the ONS include hotel porters, waiters and bar staff, and retail assistants.

The report may be masking the extent of graduate unemployment however, as the unemployed figure excludes those on work experience or internships many of which are short term and, controversially, unpaid.

The one figure which surprised me in the video was the concentration of graduates in London and the South East. I suspect this reflects the role of the London and the South East as the centre for banking and finance, most of which jobs require a degree. Conversely those regions with a lower percentage of graduates are mainly focused on manufacturing industry. Whilst these industries require skilled workers, degrees may not be so important. I would be very interested to see a comparison between pay and employment of graduates and skilled workers (without a degree – for instance with an apprenticeship). Unfortunately the way in which The Labour Force Survey collects data around qualifications makes it very difficult to make any meaningful comparisons. Yet, especially for young people from working class backgrounds, that may be a key choice for them in coming years.

And whilst the present English government is attempting to increase the number of apprenticeship places, there have been persistent criticism over the quality of those apprenticeship places (see this recent BBC report), with many so called apprenticeships consisting of short courses in the retail and service industries – just those very areas where so many recent graduates are ending up!

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Graduate Jobs

As reported by WONKHE, a survey of 1,200 final year students conducted by Prospects in the UK found that 29 per cent have lost their jobs, and 26 per cent have lost internships, while 28 per cent have had their graduate job offer deferred or rescinded. 47 per cent of finalists are considering postgraduate study, and 29 per cent are considering making a career change. Not surprisingly, the majority feel negative about their future careers, with 83 per cent reporting a loss of motivation and 82 per cent saying they feel disconnected from employers

Post-Covid ed-tech strategy

The UK Ufi VocTech Trust are supporting the Association of Colleges to ensure colleges are supported to collectively overcome challenges to delivering online provision at scale. Over the course of the next few months, AoC will carry out research into colleges’ current capacity to enable high quality distance learning. Findings from the research will be used to create a post-Covid ed-tech strategy for the college sector.

With colleges closed for most face-to-face delivery and almost 100% of provision now being delivered online, the Ufi says, learners will require online content and services that are sustainable, collective and accessible. To ensure no one is disadvantaged or left behind due to the crisis, this important work will contribute to supporting businesses to transform and upskilling and reskilling those out of work or furloughed.

Erasmus+

The European Commission has published an annual report of the Erasmus+ programme in 2018. During that time the programme funded more than 23,500 projects and supported the mobility of over 850,00 students, of which 28,247 were involved in UK higher education projects, though only one third of these were UK students studying abroad while the remainder were EU students studying in the UK. The UK also sent 3,439 HE staff to teach or train abroad and received 4,970 staff from elsewhere in the EU.

Skills Gaps

A new report by the Learning and Work Institute for the Local Government Association (LGA) finds that by 2030 there could be a deficit of 2.5 million highly-skilled workers. The report, Local Skills Deficits and Spare Capacity, models potential skills gaps in eight English localities, and forecasts an oversupply of low- and intermediate -skilled workers by 2030. The LGA is calling on the government to devolve the various national skills, retraining and employment schemes to local areas. (via WONKHE)

RT @brlamb The most charitable interpretation of this Tweet is that it is naive, uninformed, and posted at the worst possible moment. Ignorant idiocy.
The replies are providing ample context to Martin. It was posted more than two hours ago. It’s hard to avoid a far more damning conclusion. twitter.com/moodler/status…

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